


At Easel

by Silvestria



Category: The London Life (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Crushes, Drabble, F/M, Hopeless Nerds in Love, Painting, Regency
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 11:29:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7975249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvestria/pseuds/Silvestria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr. Carey paints Miss Osbourne. She attempts to make conversation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Easel

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, Hellie, for letting me borrow Adrian.

"I read Latin," said Diana suddenly, without moving her gaze from third pane up second across that she had had her eyes fixed on for the last half hour. She was not sure why she said it, only the silence for the past ten minutes had felt... something. Not oppressive for Diana never minded silence much and she did not even mind being silent while Mr. Carey painted. It was just a prickly kind of oddness that made her want to fill it. Why she said _that_ of all things was a complete mystery. So obviously she followed it up with, "And Greek too."  
  
There was a brief pause before Mr. Carey relied and then it was with his customary good-humour. "Do you really? I cannot say that is something I ever expected you to tell me but it seems that the unexpected is one of your talents, Miss Osbourne."  
  
"I am not a bluestocking," she pointed out. "I have no interest in being learned."  
  
"No interest in, and yet you are. You're a conundrum!"  
  
"Am I? I hope not!" At this, she turned round, her cheeks slightly pink, only to see him looking at her over the top of his easel with a warm smile and raised eyebrows.  
  
"If you could just keep your position a little longer, Miss Osbourne..."  
  
Her gaze lowered as she turned away again, the colour in her cheeks receding when she no longer had to look at him.  
  
"Do you tell everybody who paints your portrait that you read Latin - and Greek too? Is this your connection to the Renaissance, I wonder?" he continued with uninterrupted pleasantness.  
  
Diana swallowed and kept her gaze fixed on the window. "I think you are teasing me, Mr. Carey."  
  
"I beg your pardon, I am not laughing; I am only curious."  
  
She did not reply and since she could not move and he had plenty to occupy himself with there was very little they could do to avoid the silence. She wondered that he did not press her further or make some idiotic comment about the stupidity of women and had leisure to wonder at herself for saying anything at all and probably ruining all her chances with either brother or sister.  
  
"I'm rather fond of the Greats myself," he said what felt like a very long time later. "Eton was all about prose composition, of course, but I continued at university. Greek civilisation in particular interested me. Now, I had an excellent boy's education to thank for my years of Caesar - _Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres_ and so on - but your father must have given you a very liberal education in Wales. Who taught you? Was it him or a kindly clergyman in the village who lacked boys to fill his class?"  
  
Diana moved her head a little and then quickly moved it back to where it was before. "Nobody taught me. I taught myself. There was nothing else to do once I had read all the English books." She hesitated and then explained. "You asked me at the Haverleigh party what I liked to do and I told you all the old nonsense about embroidering screens and practising the pianoforte. But I wanted to say that I also read Latin."  
  
"And Greek too."  
  
She thought he was teasing her again but she did not dare look around. Besides, there was a warmth in his tone that she might not have noticed had she not been obliged to depend only on her ears. She sighed very lightly.  
  
"And Greek too," she agreed, her lips curling up at the corners.


End file.
